Christmas Presence

This was always going to be a hard Christmas, so I decided to give a different kind of presents.  Here is what I read aloud to my family this morning:

When we were all last together and here in Sugar Land, we were dealing with the shock and devastation of losing mom.  I said at the time that I didn’t want to celebrate Christmas; that it would have no meaning without her and it would be too hard to pretend to feel joy and to participate in all our traditions that she created.  Wisely, Dot rejected that idea outright and so here we are, tree decorated, presents unwrapped, feast preparations waiting to be assembled into the meal that she lovingly made every year for us and for dad’s birthday.

There have been a lot of tears, and even more whisky, but plenty of laughs and giggles, too.  Dot was right.  We need to acknowledge and celebrate those around us even while we mourn for mom.  Dad and I have commented several times that mom’s way of showing us love was in giving of gifts – she loved nothing more than to find that perfect present for each of us.  Whether it was a shearling coat for Adriane her sophomore year of college, her diamond pendant for me on my 22^nd birthday to replace the one that had been stolen, all the purple pink and sparkly you could find for Dot or the fancy camera that still entertains (read: confounds) Dad that Christmas in London. 

But, her best present to us was one that we too rarely acknowledged. And, that was her time.  The time she spent making all of these wonderful Christmas decorations on and under the tree and around the house; the time she invested teaching me how to cook and helping Adriane and I both with culinary challenges (read: disasters!), the time she spent listening to us all, and worrying long after the conversations ended, about our woes and struggles. The hours she invested meticulously “doing the money” as she called it, so that she and dad could afford the Hawaiis, Balis, Stockholms and Londons we all enjoyed together.

And, if I could have anything this Christmas, it would be a little more time with her.

So, my present to each of you this year is TIME.  My time – doing something with and for you.  I can’t buy you anything you don’t already have the ability to purchase yourself, so I wanted to give you something only I can give.  So, you can each open your gifts now.

You will see that you each have a small silver desk clock.  And you each have a unique engraving that reflects my gift of time to you.  A gift that I will be giving you each week in the coming year – it starts today.  And every week, I will be doing something for and with you that will keep you close to my heart and in my thoughts.

To Grandma -- John Donne wrote that “letters mingle souls; for, thus friends absent speak.”  You and I have always had a letter writing tradition and we have gotten so much closer in the last few months that I look forward to sharing news with you and hearing all about your new life in the Sugar Land.  Neither of us likes to talk on the phone and we both love getting letters in the mail, so my gift to you this year is to write you a letter every week.  You don’t have to write me back except when you have time and feel like it, but you will hear about my life every week, no matter how mundane or boring it may be. 

I want us to build on the closeness that we have so late discovered and I think Donne described it perfectly, for, thus absent friends speak. It may be short, it may even be a post card, but I promise that with those few words, you will be a part of my life every week and, hopefully,  I yours.

 To Bobby – Bernard Hinault, five time winner of the Tour de France, said, “As long as I breathe, I attack;” this quote so reminds me of your passion for life and your relentless commitment to the things that matter to you.  Your singular focus and enthusiasm will be a part of my gift to you and Adriane.

To Adriane – You are probably wondering if I am trying to tell you something with the engraving on your clock – "Exercise, you don’t have time not to." :)  Fear not….

I know you worry about my health and fitness, particularly after mom’s health issues.  It’s true, I have gained a lot of weight and I have stopped doing anything that remotely resembles exercise.  I no longer run, I quit my gym and I take the bus when I could easily walk. And, I feel old, my knees hurt, my feet ache, I struggle to catch my breath.  I am headed down the wrong road.

You have always been the inspiration behind any exercise I have ever undertaken.  As teenagers, you were always sporty, while I lived in fear of gym class and anything that would cause a sweat.  But, as I grew older I started to realize that physical activity was rewarding and when I saw you cycle, swim, run, hike and play tennis, I was motivated to join in – probably a little of that old competitive spirit helped too!

So my gift to both of you is to train for a bike ride with you.  Anywhere in the world, any distance, anytime – BUT, I need your help, Bobby, in coming up with a training plan and both of you to stay focused with me week in and week out while I struggle to get in shape and to train.  One of my most proud moments was finishing that 10K with you, Adriane, in London and I want that shared feeling with both of you.  I can think of nothing that would give me more satisfaction than to work hard at this for you and with you and then do it together. (not to mention how good a cold beer will taste after!) 

 

And, finally, to Dad.  A classic Churchill  quote, meaningful without even knowing the quote, as we started our healing over  WWII classics and whisky, experienced his war rooms in London with mom and quoted him on mom’s death announcements.  But, the words mean something, too.  "Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."  And it always has been for us.

From the Cold War when we couldn’t go, to the time you and mom and I tried to go in 2003, only to be foiled at the last minute by visa challenges, we have always talked of going to Moscow and St. Petersburg.  But, there were always other places that were higher on mom’s list and we all thought it would be too much of an ordeal language-wise.  My trip to Kiev proved that as I had an amazing time, thanks to my two Russian speaking friends.  But, the Chernobyl museum, the catacombs and the Soviet statues and museums, not to mention the menus (take note: that isn’t butter you are slathering on your bread, it is lard!) would have been insurmountable without a translator.  So, we never made the journey to Mother Russia.

But, now the time has come.  We have all talked about it – maybe a cruise along the Volga waterways, maybe another June 22^nd invasion in honor of Bobby’s birthday (with more success than Napoleon and Hitler, of course!).  Maybe a trip to Kiev.  Regardless, we will need some language skills, so my gift to you is that I am starting Russian classes in January.  I have always loved languages and mom taught Adriane and I both to speak several from birth so we have had the ability to adopt accents well.  I am looking forward to learning a new one and being able to help us navigate and translate on our big adventure.

Now, when I first devised these Christmas gifts, I didn’t know that Adriane was also taking Russian.  And, at first, I was a little deflated – I wanted this to be my gift to you and I felt like it had a lot less meaning and impact if I wasn’t solely doing this.  But, I think this is even better because now Adriane and I can practice with each other, you will have two translators, and once again, that sibling competitive spirit will kick in and propel us forward.  Next month, Russian for Beginners; next year, Dostoyevsky in the original!! :)

Game on, McFetridge, game on!

So, I hope you will each enjoy your presents from me, that will see that clock on your desk and you will be reminded how precious time is. If we have gotten nothing out of mom’s death, I think it is that.

And, that is why I am giving it to you this year, of all years – I want the hours of my life to matter to you – to keep you present in my daily life, to build the foundation for and to create future memories, to constantly show you how much I love you and to help me be the sister, daughter and granddaughter you deserve.   

My Momma

I was not sure I would be able to speak today and I am going to have to ask you to be patient with me, because I have never done this before and no one should be good at this.  But I could not let y’all walk out of here and not know what Lucinda McFetridge was like as a mother. So on behalf of her girls I want to tell you a little bit about her.

She made no secret of the fact that my sister and I were her proudest accomplishments, if not her greatest heartbreaks.  Because those of you with children know that they will break your heart.  And they are supposed to – if you do it right, they feel so much love and confidence and passion for life that they leave you and go out and make their own way.  I know my mother missed my sister and me every day and she lived to hear our voices on the phone and was always standing at the airport with the biggest smile whenever planes arrived.  It made her sad when we left and I know she cried. 

But she was so proud of who Adriane and I had become – and not just our career successes, which she often bragged about, so I have no doubt y’all know more about us than we do!  She was proud because we did get on planes and go. 

At 22 she got on her first big plane trip to Hawaii as a new bride and my dad just told me this week how terrified she was of that.  She never wanted us to feel that way – she wanted us to seize life and tame it to our desires.

And we did. 

My mother gave me that gift and many others – and not just my good looks :).  She taught me to love animals, music, languages and cooking.  Even gravy, which God knows Adriane and I struggled with – even calling her on Thanksgiving in the middle of the night in Indonesia to walk us through how to turn greasy caulk into something edible. (Turns out you can’t!)

She taught me to never walk and smoke.  (back when we all did – smoke that is!) Or wear white before Easter, after Labor Day or at someone else’s wedding.  Or open your own door or change your own tire if there is a man there to do it!  (and there always is – you may have to wait a while in front of a closed door, but one will turn up eventually.  I am still waiting!)   

Most importantly, though, she taught me how to love.  With everything you have.  Not everyone saw that, but if you are someone who has the capacity for that kind of boundless generosity and vulnerability, you need to be careful on whom you bestow it. 

Cats are always a good choice though.  :)

But there are things she never managed to teach me. Primarily how to budget! Or how to cook without Crisco or butter. How to pump gas.

Or how to face the rest of my life without her as my go to when my heart is breaking or my world is feeling small and painful.

But,today should not be about that.  You may have noticed that I am wearing a party dress, with sparkly shoulder pads.  And you may have thought that odd, but my mom helped me plan my 40^th birthday party back a few months ago and she bought me this dress to wear to it.  She loved that she got to be a part of that and I wanted her to get to see me in it and to remind people that this IS a party.

Now we won’t have done it as well as my mom would have, because y’all know she could throw a party.  But we will have too much food and even more alcohol and we need to take this time to celebrate what she meant to each of us.

Tomorrow we can wake up and learn how to go on without her.  But, today, let’s keep her close and rejoice in how we lived with her.

The Great British Summer

So, last time I regaled y’all with latest musings of Countrydropper, I was bemoaning the London weather.  As a matter of fact, my exact words were that there were only two seasons: grey, wet and warm and grey, wet and cold.  Well, I am happy to say that London took my challenge and threw down the gauntlet with a month of heat and sunshine.  In fact, dare I say – we actually had the Great British Summer.  Now, I had heard tell of this mythical phenomena and I had even sampled a taste of it the Summer of 2006- my first such season in the UK- when the World Cup was on, the sun was shining, pubs were spilling over with cold beer and good times.  My ground floor flat had giant glass windows painted shut that simulated a stifling global warming greenhouse effect, so I even went so far as to start pricing air conditioning units.  Yes, those first few months residing in London lured me in, like a first date with champagne and roses, making me believe that this was what I could expect for 3 months out of the year. 

Not so much. A little less romance, a little more one night stand.

Fast forward 7 years and I have yet to have had a single sunburn in England.  I have never again contemplated purchasing any cooling device, I own a single ice tray and my sheets and duvet remain heavy Egyptian cotton.   The only consistent and reliable heat I have experienced is that emitting from my blow-dryer.

But, I survived.  I watched the rain soaked Jubilee celebrations from a pub, I wore a raincoat over my wedding attire to attend a Royal Wedding party and I lived in my jean jacket for two weeks solid while checking out the Olympic action at the big screen festival area in my local park.  In short, I did what every good Londoner did and endured the “summer” in a hazy boozy state.  I no longer believed the weather-casters when they predicted a “BBQ Summer” – particularly after I had yet to go through the single gas canister I bought for my BBQ 4 summers ago.  And, let’s face it, when M&S sells umbrellas marketed under the Great British Summer logo, you know we’ve all given up.

But, lo and behold, this summer has proved us all wrong.  After a particularly crappy and long winter, we have had weeks of consecutive sunshine and heat.  I broke out my flip flops, bought some sun dresses and packed away the tan in a can.  Oh joyous celebration, the Great British Summer exists!

And, yet, the warmer it got, the crankier people became.  I expect Londoners to “moan” (btw, this is a particularly odd word for me.  As a Texan, moaning only happens on TV channels that come on after 9 pm so imagine my surprise at the frequency with which people use that word here in lieu of “to complain.”  Actually, when you think about it, it takes a word that describes something positive and makes it describe something negative.).

But, I digress.

Or, rather do I? Because I think the Brits have a way with misnomers.  For people who invented English, they sure struggle with how to use it.

Let me explain.  As you all know, another thing about weather here is that everyone LOVES to talk about it.   Awkward minute or two in the elevator with a stranger?  Comment on the cloudy drizzle.  Beginning of a conference call while waiting for everyone to join?   Whinge about the washed out weekend.  Horribly invasive medical procedure involving stirrups or coughing?  Mention the endless winter. 

So, clearly you are going to need some good adjectives here, right?  Some really descriptive, almost visceral, words to help convey your thoughts.  I mean, this is at least 60% of your conversation so you are going to need some choice options.

 But, no.   You couldn’t be more off if you tried. 

For example, when it is really Houston-muggy and oppressive, the Brits will say it is “close” – close to what I ask?  Hell?  Well, then yes. 

And, if it is teeth-chatteringly icy with gusts of arctic blasts, it is simply “fresh.”  No, folks, I am here to tell you, it ain’t  “fresh,” it is COLD.  Fresh is how you describe fruit or the smell of clean sheets.  Not hypothermia.

So, here we are, FINALLY getting some heat.  And, guess how everyone is reacting?  With jubilation and glee?  Nope.  Yep, you guessed it – they moan.  And guess what the adjective du jour is? 

Boiling.

Boiling?? Really?  OK, I have a thermostat and you can break this down nice and easy in Celsius– it is 30 degrees and 100 is boiling, so you’re pretty much closer to freezing – by a lot – than boiling. 

So, why the extremes now?  We were fresh and close before but we get boiling when the country finally thaws itself out?  Color  (and, yes that is color without the superfluous “u”) me confused.  Moaning is a bad thing, fresh and close are OK, but boiling is awful?    And, yes, I get that the infrastructure isn’t set up for heat – the tube lines contract and screw up all public transport, the offices have poor or non-existent AC, no one has screens on their windows so flies are everywhere in your home and we’re all hot sweaty messes.

But, I have been wet and droopy or a cold and runny-nosed mess for the last 8 months.   So, I am loving this frequent exposure to Vitamin D. My skin is a little more brown, I’ve staved off the rickets for another year and I finally had a reason to buy Jimmy Choo flip flops. 

But.  I won’t lie.  I was happy to go to Prague for the weekend and stay in the Hilton, where I cranked the AC down as far as it would go and just relished the frigid darkness of a hotel room with black out curtains.  And, I found myself curled up on the couch in front of the fan, watching TV rather than lying out in the garden, only to dig out the tan in a can and apply it once the sun had gone down.  And, I have been known to complain a little about my long sweaty hair sticking to my neck and threatening everyone that I must be going through the Change (menopause for my American friends).

So, maybe I have gone a little more native than I thought.

But, if I ever fully succumb and buy an umbrella that says the “Great British Summer” on it, I think it will be time to pack it in and head to Texas where hot is 115 degrees, tapes and makeup melt when left in your car, and you really can cook an egg on the sidewalk. 

Now, that is boiling.

Fancy Mess

Well, folks, it’s been a while.  Almost 6 months to be exact and I wish I could tell y’all the that the hiatus was due to a glamorous sabbatical world tour extravaganza, a whirlwind romance ending in happily ever after or a lottery win that led to 180 days of being sozzled on pink fizz.

But, no, just took a break to sort out some things in my real life – the one that (nearly!) pays the bills, goes to work, has hangovers and heartache and isn’t always as funny and fabulous as Countrydropper is – but, fear not, with the advent of spring (and, yes, I am aware that it is mid-June.  I live in London, after all.  Home to two seasons – grey, wet and cold and grey, wet and warm.  As it is less cold than warm, it must be spring. It damn sure ain’t summer.)  I am back on the funny wagon.  Or, at least the “I think I am” funny wagon.  But, you must be mildly amused or you wouldn’t have gotten this far!

So, here I sit contemplating my Saturday night plans – a house party.  Now,  for all y’all back home, that may mean something akin to a 90s Moby event replete with glow sticks and bad dancing, but for those of us city dwellers it just means a party at someone’s “house” (AKA flat) as opposed to a pub or bar.  Which really means, bring your own booze and no 11 pm closing time.  My kinda shindig.  But, another aspect of the London House Party is fancy dress. 

What, you Amerixan (see what I did there?  I kept the Texas while still including the America as all my friends know that a Texan is a Texan first, an American second. But, some of y’all didn’t have the good luck to be from God’s Country, so I lump y’all in there, too) folks will be thinking, who wears a cocktail formal to someone’s house?   But, no, fancy dress is code for costume as opposed to black tie, which is code for, well, black tie.

Yes, the Brits love to dress up like every day is Halloween.  Which is ironic as Halloween here is a real let down.  For people who invented irony, the hallmark of Halloween, they certainly don’t get the point on October 31.  No, people seem to think that is has to be something “scary” so you see a bunch of people in costumes with some fake blood and gore added to it. You haven’t seen anything til you have seen a zombie Michael Jackson or a corpse Taylor Swift.  As an aside, my best British Halloween costume ever was during the election year in 2008 when I went as Sarah Palin. Scary and ironic all at once. Result.

So, as there is nothing ironic or clever about Halloween, these fancy dress parties abound.  I, myself, have had not too few, the first being a Bad Taste party, which was one of the best soirees I have had.  Well, until the panic moment when my two terrorist bedecked friends decided to fire their toy guns outside my flat.  Which was next door to the Chilean Embassy and across the street from the Turkish Embassy.  Probably not a good idea to have a balaclava and flak jacketed “IRA” dude exchanging fire with the thobe clad “Muslim” outside my front door.  (And, no, I don’t know why I used the quotation marks for my friend, who actually is Muslim, and yes, I did have to google “Muslim man’s robe” to learn that it was actually called a thobe.) 

But, I digress.

So, tonight’s fancy dress theme is The Great Gatsby.  Now, I have long hair and a curvy figure, so I am already at a disadvantage for the 20s when women were supposed to look like sparkly bejewelled little boys.  Not much I can do about that, so my uber lame costume is an art deco necklace and a black dress.  I am sure I have a feather boa and some black silk gloves in my fancy dress box. 

(Yes, I am 40 years old and I have a toy box. It has a pink silk witch’s hat, a sparkly American flag cowboy hat, devil’s horns, said boa and gloves etc.  One can never be too prepared for an impromptu fancy dress affair.)

I am looking forward to this party, but with some trepidation.  The last fancy dress themed event that I (and many of tonight’s guests) attended was my Fabulous 40s Party in December.  A fantastic event, with bottles of champagne, waiters with amazing hors d’oeuvres and nibbles, the world’s largest cheese plate and the most amazing 1940s themed costumes ever (including a cameo appearance by an 8 month old Winston Churchill, munching on his pacifier/dummy turned cigar).  We danced and drank and celebrated in a magnificent country manor house in Suffolk until the wee hours of the morning.  We had a wonderful brunch the next morning with homemade pancakes, roasted chicken, stuffing, potatoes, mimosas and more wine.

It was the perfect weekend.

And, then…the Kraken was unleashed.

Otherwise known as Norovirus or the winter vomiting bug, it starts off subtly with a “hmm, I feel a bit NQR." (not quite right for the non-Aussies)  Must be having a delayed onset of a hangover…maybe I will just lie down….to a “wow, maybe I am still drunk as that was some serious projectile vomiting, I better chug a big pint of water"….to an, "uh-oh…."

To put it more delicately, my friend Rich said he felt like a tube of toothpaste squeezed out both ends.

So, some of us were still out in the country, some had actually made it home, some were en-route.  But, all of us (bar 3) were struck down at some point in varying degrees of horrific-ness. I was still in the House of Hell (as it came to be known in my mind) along with a few friends and we had to alter travel plans and stay an extra night as one friend (who shall remain nameless!) was unable to leave the safety of indoor plumbing.  Now, you would think that the nice folks who rented the house to us would have let us stay for free given the medical necessity, but, no, the money grubbers insisted on charging my friend for the night.

I take comfort in the fact that the virus can live for up to 14 days on surfaces and that the owners were staying in the house the next weekend for their family Christmas.  Karma is a b*tch.

So, a technicolor end to what had been a glorious weekend and party. I will certainly never forget turning 40.  Nor will my friends I suspect, as every time we have gotten together since that night, the Kraken has come up in conversation like an old war story at a VFW event.  We endured and we survived, but we are all a little marked by the event.

In hindsight, maybe having a fancy dress theme based on a war wasn’t such a great idea. Maybe staying in village that had been home to the strategic military encampment of the US Air Force during World War 2 was tempting fate a bit. And, maybe, just maybe, having a friend who (randomly) dressed as a priest and staying in a former monastery was a bit irreverent.  

I am sure tonight will be different – what could be better than the Roaring 20s?   

I can’t imagine an illustrious ending to a Great Gatsby themed affair.  Nothing fortuitous about that, right?

At least it isn’t the Hamptons.  Or summer.